At The Boss’s Beck And Call

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LARA woke late, with an immediate sense of something irrevocable having happened. Even the sensual impression left by Alessandro’s lips and hands and big lean frame was overwhelmed by her anxiety. Her restless night had taken its toll.

She lingered in her bed, torn by conflicting fears.

If only she had some way of predicting what he might do. Now that he’d seen Vivi, would his curiosity be satisfied? Would he go on his way and never look back at his child? At her?

She felt a deep wrench within her. True, that had been what she’d thought she wanted, but now…

With a rush of certainty she knew it would not be for the best. Not for Vivi.

As for herself…He’d said some wonderful things to her last night, things she could have sworn were sincere, but so he had the last time he was here. She’d put all her faith in them then, and love and trust had turned to bitterness and heartbreak.

Even now, if he said he loved her, if by some wild turn of the card he decided he wanted to marry her, could she crush down her hurt and misgivings over his casual treatment of her in the past and go through with it?

A misty little fantasy nudged its way in through the barriers. The scenario in which seeing Vivi last night had inspired him. He’d been enchanted. He’d understood then how beautiful and special a gift a child was, and he felt proud of her. So proud. He’d decide to stay and be a proper father. He’d marry Lara, not because she was the mother of his child but because he loved her, and when they went walking he’d hold Vivi’s hand, and Vivi would have a dad she could take to the Year One Father’s Day Picnic…

Her throat thickened and tears rushed into her eyes. Even if all that miraculously happened and she hadn’t absolutely blown her chances by telling him straight off that she wouldn’t marry him, could she do it simply because he wanted Vivi? Wouldn’t the old betrayal always be there, undermining their happiness?

And how likely was the Marquis of the Venetian Isles to give up his sophisticated globe-trotting lifestyle for domestic bliss?

She cancelled the fantasy, reached for a tissue and gave her eyes a good wipe.

As usual, Vivi was up and about, probably since first light like a little bird. Lara could hear her voice from her playroom, singing to Kylie Minogie one minute, ordering her to sit up straight and pay attention or march to the time-out room the next.

She roused herself and drifted in to greet her darling, then wandered into her bathroom.

There was so much to consider, she mused, surrendering her nakedness to the soothing stream. So what if he’d had his marriage annulled? Did she seriously think he might not have had other girlfriends since that time? Did she care about all of them?

Of course she didn’t. She only cared about the Giulia affair.

Bathed, semi-dressed and wrapped in her towelling robe, she ironed her blouse, then Vivi’s school dress, while Vivi gouged a hole in the Vegemite with a knife and inexpertly smeared the massive lump on her toast. Lara paused to watch her take a bite, and winced in sympathy when her little elfin face screwed up in horror. Ugh.

At work Lara was faced with a heavier than usual pile of manuscripts submitted by aspiring authors. She grimaced. Fantastic.

Her worries kept intruding. Despite her feelings about Alessandro’s marriage to that woman, could she seriously contemplate just letting him walk away? She knew she wasn’t up to another airport scene. The last one had nearly killed her, and then she’d been sure he was coming back.

She forced herself back to the manuscript she was reading, and realised she was on page two without having taken in a word. Something about a possum and a tree house. Hopeless, she realised, and airlifted it to the waste basket.

But how could she stop him? Other women seemed able to dig their claws in and hold onto men. Her lack of ability to do so had already been clearly demonstrated to the world.

She opened another masterpiece, her heart sinking in misgiving when she thought of his face when he’d left last night. He’d looked so stern and remote, so closed off from her. If only she could get some inkling of how he was feeling today. She really needed to see him. Find out how he looked.

It was agony, knowing he was just a short walk away down the corridor, yet out of her reach. She supposed she could hardly mosey along and interrupt the interviews going on in there for the new MD’s position. Not to mention that Donatuila was forever present, guarding him like a mastiff.

She drummed her fingers on the pages spread before her on the desk. Soon he would be leaving.

Panic seized her. Her time was running out. Once he got on that plane it would be the end of everything. Her absolute joy. The excitement of not knowing what he would do next, the sheer thrill of being with him, the passion. He’d fly out of their lives and she’d be back to her nun-like existence.

Anguish speared through her at the thought of losing him again. How would she ever bear it?

She turned a page and puzzled over a strange sentence for a while, then gave up and aimed it for the bin. Another slam dunk. Why couldn’t people learn to punctuate?

She was reaching for the next one on the pile just as the phone rang on her desk. She started, and her heart jumped into a nervy racketing.

‘Lara?’ It was Alessandro’s deep voice. ‘Can I see you for a few minutes?’

‘Certainly,’ she said. Calmly, she hoped.

She didn’t feel calm. She replaced the phone with shaking hands, realising this was it. The verdict. After a few seconds, avoiding Josh’s interested glance, she stood up, straightened her blouse and soft blue jacket, and brushed down her pencil skirt.

Alessandro was waiting for her at the door of his office. She tried to read his expression, but he looked controlled and inscrutable. He closed the door behind her when she walked in, then bent to brush her cheek with lips that were cool.

‘Good morning, Lara.’

Lara. Not Larissa, or carissima, or tesoro. After being lovers last night, they were back to being formal.

Some expensive, tangy aftershave lingered on his lean, smooth-shaven jaw. He looked so tall, dark and delicious in his charcoal suit and crisp blue shirt, on another, less nerve-racking occasion, she might have kissed his beautiful, stern mouth. It was easy to believe he was the Marquis of the Venetian Isles, though impossible to credit that such a gorgeous, sophisticated example of masculinity had ever desired her.

Maybe she’d dreamed last night and those things he’d said. Maybe, when he’d left her afterwards with that remote, closed expression, it was because at heart he was repelled by the modest domesticity of her and her child.

She managed to stay upright on her legs, but her entire being was a vessel of nervous flutterings.

‘So?’ she queried in a low voice, her heart on a cliff’s edge, last night’s scene with Vivi vivid in her mind. ‘What-what is it?’

His brilliant gaze scoured her face in careful assessment, then he lowered his lashes. Choosing his words, she realised, her heart plunging in fear.

‘I have been thinking. I want to meet Vivi.’

‘Oh.’ The shock roiled through her. She felt her heart rev into a painful pounding rhythm. The moisture dried from her throat. ‘Oh, good, good,’ she somehow said, knowing she had to behave like an adult, her dry voice as husky as a crow’s. ‘But…are you sure? Where are you going with this, Sandro? Are you aware…? I-I mean, have you considered this will be deeply-emotional and significant to her?’

Her voice cracked on ‘emotional’, and there was no concealing her feelings.

‘I am doing what I must do, carissa.’ He frowned. ‘Why are you so afraid? Last night was deeply emotional and significant to me. All of it.’

‘Oh.’ Her eyes filled with tears, and she dashed them away with the backs of her hands. ‘All right, then,’ she said, when she could. She moistened her lips. ‘So what happens after you meet her? You fly off to the other side of the globe and we never see you again?’

‘That’s not how it will be.’

‘How will it be, then?’ Her hands twisted in tune with her churning heart. ‘Can you see this-that if you meet her, then leave her and never come back, she will be more destroyed by it than if you never meet her?’

Shock flickered in his dark eyes, and he grabbed her shoulders. ‘Why do you have such a poor opinion of me, Lara? Why would I do that? Do you think I would just forget her?’

‘I don’t know. You forgot me.’

His eyes widened. ‘Cosa?’

There was a knock. Alessandro released her just as the door opened and Donatuila swished in.

‘Your next guy is here, boss.’ She came to a surprised halt, her pencilled brows flying up. ‘Oh, hey. Sorry. Am I interrupting?’

‘Oh, no, no,’ Lara said, whipping blindly around and managing to make the door without knocking her sideways. ‘I’m just leaving.’

She walked briskly to the ladies’ room, grateful not to meet any other curious eyes along the way, and sat in a cubicle until the tears had properly dried up and she’d stopped the shaking.

How ironic, to have been interrupted in the middle of what might have been the most important conversation of her life.

After a while, she got up and checked her mascara, though there wasn’t much she could do without make-up. She’d just have to wait for her eyes to return to normal. Why was it that some tears did more damage than others?

Back at her desk, she reached for the next manuscript on the pile and kept her eyes lowered to it. There may have been a charged silence in the room, but if any of her friends noticed anything, they didn’t say a word.

It was nearly lunch time when an eruption in the depths of her bag summoned her to her mobile. Her mother, she assumed. Something to do with picking Vivi up from school.

Her heart jolted when she saw that the message was from Alessandro.

Meet me in the lobby.

Fine, she thought, straightening her spine. Round two. She was calmer now. She’d had coffee, she wasn’t blotchy any more, and she’d had time to think a little. If he wanted to see Vivi, that could only be good, couldn’t it? Wasn’t it what she wanted?

She dropped by the Ladies first to make sure she looked smooth and pale, the most she could hope for on this stressful day.

Alessandro was in the lobby ahead of her. She saw him as soon as the lift doors opened on the ground floor. He was standing by the entrance, chatting to some guy from Sales.

He turned his dark intelligent gaze to her as she approached, and she saw his lean face tauten, then smooth to become controlled.

Anxious not to cause any more interest than she was sure had been already aroused, she walked straight past them, through the glass doors and out into the street.

After a few minutes, she heard a firm, energetic tread behind her and Alessandro caught up.

‘Are you all right?’ He looked searchingly down at her, and she met his gaze coolly enough.

‘Fine. I think.’

‘I’m sorry about before, tesoro. I have been trying all day, but the office is not a good place for conversation. Let’s see if we can do better.’ He glanced around for a suitable location. At a nearby corner he spotted a leafy little precinct of shops and cafés. Taking her elbow, he hustled her to it, steering her under an awning shared by a café and a florist shop, halting her next to a giant tub of fragrant stocks. Deceived into believing it was spring, masses of freesias, daffodils and jonquils perfumed the heady air.

Alessandro glanced at his watch, his brows edging together. In contrast with the flowers, he smelled fresh and crisp and masculine. ‘I’ve managed to get some tickets for tonight’s opera. I thought perhaps you might come with me, enjoy the music, and afterwards we can have a little supper while we make our arrangements?’

‘Arrangements?’ She glanced warily at him.

His eyes were cool, steady and determined. ‘For me to meet with Vivi. I know you must prepare her, but we also need to consider how and where it should happen. Don’t we, carissa? We want it to be-good.’

Her pulse quickened, but she had more control this time. ‘That’s a lovely invitation, Alessandro, but I’m afraid I can’t accept. I-I can’t go out another night and leave Vivi with Mum.’ His brows lifted, and she said hurriedly, ‘Mum doesn’t mind, but it would be the third night in a row I’ve asked her to babysit. She has to work, and it’s very tiring for her. Last night I barely made it home in time for her.’ Conscious of the glint in his eyes piercing her right through her cerebral cortex, she added, ‘There’d hardly be time for us to talk, anyway. I’d have to come home straight after the opera, and-’ She shrugged and lowered her gaze, mumbling, ‘And anyway, Vivi needs me to be with her.’

His face became smooth and expressionless, and he nodded his head. ‘I see. So many reasons. Well, well, of course she does need you…It’s a pity. It does make it quite difficult for me. I don’t have very much time before I go to my next appointment in Bangkok.’

He glanced at his watch again, his jaw set grimly, and started to move away, negative vibrations whirling. Then all at once he turned back and gripped her arm, sending a bolt of pleasurable electricity searing through her flesh. ‘Is this reluctance because you’re angry about my marriage to Giulia? Is that why you accused me of forgetting you?’

Perhaps because she’d been so stirred up earlier, her emotions all sprang to the fore, ready for another workout.

She drew herself up to her full five seven. ‘What? I’m not reluctant. That’s a ridiculous thing to say. Look, what you don’t seem to realise is that when you’re a parent you can’t just drop everything at a whim. I do want you to know Vivi. I do. But I can’t help your time frame. If you just appear every six years, hang around for a few days then disappear again-that’s not my fault, is it?’

His mouth and jaw tightened. ‘That is the work I do. That is how my life is.’

She shrugged. ‘Well, there you are. And as for you forgetting me-well, too right you did. What else am I to think? One minute you were here with me, then five minutes later you married her.’

A flush darkened the bronzed skin of his lean cheek. ‘If only I had forgotten you.’ He breathed so hard his nostrils flared. ‘It was you who feared to fly away with me, remember? When I married Giulia I didn’t expect you to know or even care. But-’ he raised both of his hands in a very Italian gesture ‘-since you clearly do need to know, I’ll tell you all of it. I married her because it was necessary for her to have a husband.’

A searing pain stabbed her heart at the same instant as some scalding hot emotion shot straight to her head. ‘Why? Was she pregnant too?’

He closed his eyes, his flush deepening, and said through gritted teeth, ‘Don’t…’ Then he held up a hand, as if to forestall her from repeating the frightful word. ‘No, she was not pregnant.’ His consonants were so closely clipped he almost bit the words out. ‘She was afraid.’

Relief made her legs go like jelly, and to her surprise and severe annoyance she backed into the tub of stocks and her knees gave way. Alessandro’s hands shot out to grab her, an instant before her bottom hit the water level.

With a shocked, concerned expression, he steadied her and pulled her onto her feet, helped her to brush her flustered self down, and drew her away before she could do any more damage to the merchandise.

The florist emerged from the shop interior. She broke into a beam when Alessandro turned to placate her, his hands flying about in profuse expressions of regret.

The ignominy of falling into a tub and having stalks stick into her didn’t soothe Lara’s jagged feelings. It hardly helped her swallow pathetic explanations as to why he’d had to marry that woman.

Afraid indeed. She checked the back of her skirt. Afraid of what? Scared D &G might get a divorce?

Part of her was aware of Alessandro apologising about the stocks, insisting on buying them all, writing something on the back of a card for the florist. Lara picked up on him cementing his relationship with the gushing woman by selecting a further bunch of freesias and paying her, seducing her utterly with his potent charm formula.

Typical, Lara glowered. Perhaps the florist was scared of getting her flowers crushed. Perhaps he should marry her.

She might have actually muttered some of that aloud, because she felt Alessandro’s gaze swivel around to examine her. Judging by the acute glance piercing her skull, he might have caught some of her words.

When the woman had taken the freesias inside to wrap, he said in a low, casual voice, ‘As a matter of fact, she was scared of her ex-husband.’

‘Yeah, was she?’

He looked intently at her. ‘Yes, she was. Gino was a hotheaded guy. He’d abused her. It was one of those-obsessive situations where he couldn’t accept the end of their marriage. He continually threatened her. Doesn’t this sort of thing happen here? She was terrified.’ His dark eyes hardened with recollection. ‘She felt she needed to live with someone who could protect her.’

She nodded, just managing not to roll her eyes. ‘Oh, the poor little woman. Right. Of course she needed to live with you. What else could she have done? Oh, and she had to marry you. Naturally. I see that.’

His eyes lit with an intense piercing gleam, and she found it hard to maintain her cool, breezy façade because inside she was simmering with fury.

Well, well, well. How very convenient to have a handsome marchese on hand to marry when the going got rough. Never mind that that marchese belonged to another woman on the other side of the world. A woman he’d promised to return to. A woman with genuine need of him.

Her words seemed to have piqued more than his curiosity. That gleam in his eyes wasn’t too far from satisfaction-possibly even amusement. If he hadn’t been looking so tall and lean and intelligent, so edible with his black hair and olive tan in contrast with his Armani suit, blue shirt and purple silk tie, she could have slapped his handsome face.

She restrained herself, only just, but couldn’t eliminate a certain tinge of sarcasm from her voice. ‘How very noble of you to make such a sacrifice.’ She saw his brows lift in aristocratic query, but her indignation spurred her on. ‘Why couldn’t she have gone to the police, or the courts? They have them in Italy, don’t they?’

‘Do they always work here in these cases?’ he asked mildly.

‘Oh…well…’ She dismissed that point with a shrug. ‘Why couldn’t she hire a security firm? Surely she didn’t have to marry you.’

‘This was Italy.’ His deep voice was dry and quiet and even. ‘And she tried hiring a private firm. The guy bribed her security guard and broke into her flat. He broke all the bones in her face.’

‘Oh.’ She shuddered in spite of herself. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘Yes, it was.’ He grabbed her shoulders, and held her firmly, his gaze suddenly stern. ‘And it wasn’t noble of me. It was no sacrifice. I had nothing to lose, had I, Lara? It was an act of friendship, pure and simple. I have known Giulia since childhood. At one time we were like-brother and sister. She’d tried everything else. She thought that perhaps Gino would finally give up if he believed she belonged to another man.’ His hands tightened on her shoulders, then, as though realising that he was manhandling her like the wild beast he truly was, he let go. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, waving his hands in placatory gestures. ‘As it happened-Giulia knew of my-upbringing and my feelings about violence against women, so I guess she thought she could come to me.’

Oh, great. Kicked off the moral high ground by a victim of domestic violence. Shame and embarrassment flooded in to dilute her anger and turn her into a confused mess.

‘Oh,’ she said brusquely, straightening her jacket. ‘Right. Well, then. She was very-fortunate to have you, wasn’t she?’ She forced a faux gracious smile, and made a stilted effort to recover some ground. ‘And I guess, if you were fancy free…if you had no commitments anywhere else, why not?’

His eyes glinted. ‘What commitments did I know that I had, carissa? Weren’t you the girl who needed time to think?’

She gasped. ‘Look, that wasn’t a no.’

‘In what way wasn’t it one?’

‘Well, why couldn’t you have been more…?’ She gave herself a little shake and sighed in exasperation. ‘All right, so what happened when you-ended the marriage?’

‘Her ex was a racing driver. You might have heard of him. Gino Ricci? No? He died in a crash soon after the wedding.’ He shook his head. ‘Not so surprising, if you knew him. Our marriage was entirely a sham. It was intended to last just as long as it took Gino to move on. Tragically, he went one step too far. When he killed himself there was no further need for it, so…’ He shrugged and opened his hands.

‘Well, you certainly went to a lot of trouble for a sham. Designer wedding gowns, if I remember correctly, the press invited in, spreads about your palazzo. The gold leaf on your ceiling frescoes, your old family retainers…Your town house in London, your view of the Thames, your red Ferrari…’

He looked apologetic. ‘You need to understand, Larissa. In many ways it’s a different world over there from what you are used to here.’

Flushing, she cast him a glowering glance. ‘No doubt. The Meadows family doesn’t quite run to palazzos, I suppose.’

He made a rueful twitch of his brows, and stared thoughtfully at some passers-by, then flashed her a smile. ‘That would have been the old Lamborghini, I think. And there is only one family retainer.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned his big frame against the shop door jamb. ‘That gold leaf is flaking, by the way. It needs restoring quite badly.’ He flickered a glance over her. ‘If you were following it I’m surprised you didn’t read about our annulment. It was reported quite widely in the Italian press.’

‘Maybe I lost interest,’ she said coldly. ‘I probably had other things on my mind.’

He winced and turned away, just as the florist returned with the mass of freesias, attractively wrapped now in purple tissue, and counted the change into his hand with adoring eyes. Anyone would have thought the silly woman was in love with him.

He accepted the bunch, then with a small ironic flourish passed it to Lara.

‘Oh,’ she said, taken aback. ‘Well. Well, thank you.’

The florist tore herself away to retreat into the shop, and Lara said in a gruff, constrained voice, ‘You-mentioned your-your upbringing. What did you mean? Are you saying there was domestic violence?’

‘You could say so.’

Mortified, she said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound-dismissive.’

His dark eyes gleamed. ‘Dismissive? No, I’m not sure dismissive is quite the word, carissa.’

She raised her brows coolly, though her voice sounded as rocky as sections of the Bindinong Bypass. ‘No? What then, in your opinion?’

He glanced at her, a faint curl to one corner of his mouth, then looked at his watch. ‘Talk as we walk. I have someone waiting to be interviewed.’

She strode silently beside him, clutching the flowers, waiting for the verdict though she knew it would be scathing, at a loss to understand how she had managed to land herself in the wrong, when she was the one left holding the baby.

How could she have lost all control? Still, she seethed to know what he’d been going to say, however unflattering it might be. She glanced at him a couple of times, but his expression had grown pensive, his sexy mouth set firm.

Was he planning to answer her? Did he want her to beg?

He remained silent all the way to the Stiletto building, while her curiosity to know what he’d hinted built to bursting point. At one time she was completely disconcerted when she noticed him shoot her a narrow, thoughtful glance. Just what did that mean?

Inside the glass entrance doors, her shaky patience snapped. ‘All right, then. Let me have it. How did I sound?’

The gleam was back in his eyes. ‘Jealous,’ he said instantly. ‘Like a jealous, spoilt little girl.’

‘Oh!’ A red hot tidal wave swept from her toes to the top of her head. ‘All right, yes,’ she hissed, ‘I was jealous. But let me tell you something, signor. That was no little girl’s jealousy. That was big girl’s, big time. And if you think I blamed Giulia, you’re wrong. I blamed you.’ She jabbed the freesias at his chest. ‘You promised to come back, and, yes, I was waiting for you.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘Like a stupid, dumb idiot I believed in you. I trusted you.’

Danger flashed from his dark eyes. ‘That is a lie. You were not at the Centrepoint Tower. I waited there for you for three solid days. I combed this town for you. I phoned and phoned. No reply. I went to your flat…Nothing. Other people were living there. Some guy who told me you’d moved to Queensland with your boyfriend. Your boyfriend, Lara.’

She gasped as the world whirled around and around her in a crazy kaleidoscope. ‘What?’ she said faintly, crushing the flowers in her grasp. ‘Are you saying…? You came back from America?’

The lift pinged. A crowd of businessmen piled out, and Alessandro waited coolly, then strode in to occupy the vacant lift. He leaned forward to press the button, his glance flicking outside to where she was still standing in a state of stunned bemusement. The doors started their slide.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I came back for you. And you weren’t there.’

He said those last words so accusingly, at the last moment she sprang forward in sudden urgency and wailed, ‘But, Sandro. Sandro, don’t you understand?’

The doors closed.